Minnesota Recount: Coleman holding onto lead, 78% recounted

posted at 12:02 pm on November 25, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

With more than three-quarters of the ballots recounted, it looks like Norm Coleman has held his edge on Al Franken for the Senate seat he currently occupies. The number of ballot challenges has topped 3,000, though, so in the end the canvassing board will eventually decide the winner:

The number of ballot challenges in the U.S. Senate recount surged again on Monday, passing 3,000 overall and clouding the question of who’s picking up ground in the hotly contested race.

More than 78 percent of the votes had been recounted as of Monday night, and Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s advantage over DFLer Al Franken stood at 210, according to a Star Tribune compilation of results reported to the secretary of state and gathered by the newspaper. Before the recount, Coleman led Franken by 215 votes out of about 2.9 million cast, a margin that has fluctuated over the past week.

Each candidate’s vote total has fallen by more than 1,100 since the recount began, and the bulk of the drop apparently is the result of ballot challenges by the other side, which may or may not be upheld by the state Canvassing Board next month. Each campaign has challenged more than 1,500 ballots.

The Strib thinks that Franken has gained 46 votes on Coleman since the start of the recount outside of the ballot challenges. That’s not enough to swing the election, if that trend continues. Only 22% of the ballots remain to be counted, and at that rate Franken will only gain a handful more. As I have written in the past, the optical-scan system used by most of Minnesota has tremendous reliability, and the microscopic changes seen prove that.

Of course, they’re not done counting, either, but should finish soon. I tried to warn people that vote counts could fluctuate wildly, especially at the beginning, but we’ve seen pretty remarkable stability each day. Until the recount process finishes and the canvassing board reviews the ballots, there’s little to report or be done.

Side stories seem to erupt every day anyway. One precinct used a Franken worker as an election judge for the recount, which got a short bit of attention. However, in the end, the Coleman campaign challenged more ballots in that precinct than did the Franken campaign (11 to 7), which indicates that this wasn’t much of a story at all.

The canvassing board will provide the real focus for this recount. We’re fortunate to have four widely-respected jurists on this panel who will not countenance any shenanigans, even with the strongly partisan Mark Ritchie as a statutory member as Secretary of State. Those challenge decisions will favor Coleman in the end if Franken observers keep challenging ballots like this:

The only opportunity Franken has to overtake Coleman at this rate is to get previously rejected absentee ballots added to the count. Even the Star Tribune can’t stomach that notion:

“Count them all” has a nice democratic ring to it. (Note: that’s a small “d.”) DFL Senate candidate Al Franken’s campaign has that much going for it, as it calls for adding several thousand previously rejected absentee ballots to the Senate election recount that has been in progress since Nov. 19.

But that shouldn’t be enough for the state Canvassing Board, which is set to meet Wednesday for a hearing on Franken’s request. Adding previously untallied ballots to the recount should require something more: a foundation in law. …

This state is blessed with election laws that are definitive and clear. The chapter on absentee ballots alone runs 20 pages in the statute books. The rules setting out what does and does not constitute an acceptable absentee ballot are taken very seriously by election judges. That does not mean that human error did not occur on Nov. 4, or that every aspect of the statute itself would withstand a court test. But let the courts decide.

Even Mark Ritchie, the DFL Secretary of State, recognizes that the Canvassing Board’s mission is not to adjust state law, but to properly manage a recount according to existing statute. Franken will have to go to court to get state law overturned on ballot handling, which they know will be almost impossible, thanks to Minnesota’s clear and reasonable statutory requirements for absentee ballots. The Canvassing Board, four of whose members serve on state appellate courts, will understand the distinction, even if Franken does not.

Anything is possible. Remember Florida 2000, where that state’s all-Democrat Supreme Court injected itself into the fracas without even being asked to do so by Gore. They literally tried to steal the election for him.

it’s been quiet in Hastings, MN I go again this afternoon to work as an observer. It appears to me that the challenged ballots are jokes from what I saw when they were. Coleman is going to win. But expect Franken, as the whiny little punk he is, to continue to Gore it to death.

Win or lose, Coleman is still a McCain RINO wannabe on too many important issues. It would be good to keep the seat from the Democrats but it would be better to elect a real conservative- not that something like that is going to happen in MN.

Weeks ago, he explained why ACORN was a seditions mob of bastards. A caller challenged him: why? Rush said because ACORN’s purpose is to create chaos in the precincts. To cast doubt on the number of registered voters, to taint the results with suspicion.

I didn’t buy it. I thought Rush was reaching. But he wasn’t. Sure enough, when Franken lost, his lawyers’ first impulse was to tap in to ACORN’s copious fruits: thousands and thousands of illegal registrants, purchased with whiskey and cigarettes, and a public whose eyes glaze over at the conflicting views of the actual vote count.

It’s not surprising that the totals are about the same as before the recount considering that any change in the vote total will most likely come through ballots that have been challenged.

The total as of now is somewhat meaningless. The real change will come when challenged ballots are looked at. Nate Silver has done an analysis (that’s linked to from the Strib story) that projects Franken to win by 27 votes. I have no idea how he’d come to that conclusion, but he was on the nose in the general election.

Can the State of Minnesota sue Franken for wasting the taxpayers money on this? Wasting taxpayers money is the job of elected officials, not wishful losers like Franken. Think about it-if some idiot gets lost in the woods, and the search/rescue costs $80,000…the idiot can be billed for his rescue.
Franken has lost, is lost, and will always be a loser-I suggest that he should foot the bill for his ill-fated ego trip.

Win or lose, Coleman is still a McCain RINO wannabe on too many important issues. It would be good to keep the seat from the Democrats but it would be better to elect a real conservative- not that something like that is going to happen in MN.

highhopes on November 25, 2008 at 12:25 PM

So we should be happy to have Coleman. If rock solid conservatives are unlikely to survive in place like MN or Maine we shouldn’t be pissed when they sometimes act like RINOs. We should get pissed when people in states like NC, GA and TX make a career out of being RINOs.

Minneapolis still has a considerable number of the uncounted ballots, not due to any conspiracy but due to sheer numbers of ballots. We have been doing 10 tables of judges and observers except for a lunch break in the middle of the day. Yesterday 2 tables counted through lunch.

Agee Gold had done a extensive survey and he showed Coleman will win by 113 votes. Basically only one “Franken” precinct is left to count, and several heavy Coleman precincts are left.
The Coleman campaign was forced to use the same challenging tactics as the Franken campaign begin using.
That is the “undervote” which was the campaign and legal strategy all along. They just didn’t think that Coleman campaign would do the same, plus they were hoping (as there supporters have stated) the the dems are basically stupid and sloppy, therefore those undervotes should favor Franken.
However, it has been noted that more challenges from Coleman, but more “undervote” challenges from Franken.
I predict all the undervotes will be counted and Coleman will come out ahead on that.
Franken is in deep doo-doo hence the challenge of the perfect Coleman mark.

Franken has lost, is lost, and will always be a loser-I suggest that he should foot the bill for his ill-fated ego trip.

Doug on November 25, 2008 at 12:45 PM

The closseness of the count threw this into an auto recount…if it was not close then the challenger has to pay for all expenses of a recount.
Franken has every right to have a recount…just not every right to cheat the process.

A Krazy Kossite Kid’s head would explode if Kucinich won and he didn’t immediately surrender to Iran, allow only Pacifica as the only media source, declare a cultural revolution, and impose and combination of Sharia law and the teachings of Mao’s little red book.

I know you guys rely on the media bias crutch, but there’s a video on there that shows ballots challenged by Coleman that clearly have a vote for McCain and clearly have a vote for Franken. They also show the ballots have been challenged because of intent.

What are you talking about? The basis of the challenge was “intent” as claimed by the Coleman campaign. Now, yes, he has a legal right to do this under Minnesota law, but I was pointing this out because people on HA were up in arms because they were claiming Franken’s team wanted ballots that voted for Obama with no vote for any senatorial campaign to count for Franken. Now, this was never the case. I just find it funny that it’s the Coleman campaign that is employing this kind of logic in their challenges.

The recount won’t be decided til all those are sorted out. We won’t even have a clue who the winner will be until they are sorted out.

Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 12:52 PM

Here we go again…I showed you the links where this was Franken’s strategy all along. Coleman is using the same strategy, it isn’t Coleman who demanded the recount, Franken could have opted out.
Coleman should object to every little item, it wasn’t his doing…and he isn’t going to be blindsided by a strategy from the beginning meant to count the “under votes”. But now that that strategy is backfiring, you liberals are whining about it.
If you don’t like the process, Franken can “opt out”.
Coleman by 113, which still means he is the senator…
Great link to the dKos, those guys are nuts, I can see why you think so highly of them. Any more news on who Trig’s mom really is? Any more news on who Joe the Plumber relatives really are? Any more news on any affairs Todd Palin has had? Yeah, great link that you rely on….HAAHAHAHA!

Coleman campaign that is employing this kind of logic in their challenges.

Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 1:01 PM

Typical liberal mindset…we can do, but if you do it,it is wrong.
Your guy and his attorneys laid the ground rules, I wasn’t so upset at Franken doing it, as I was afraid that Coleman would not…now that they are both doing it, fine.
I would have preferred Franken not start the “gutter” count, but he is who he is…

You showed me a link that said that part of Franken’s strategy was to get rejected absentee ballots re-examined. But you never linked to anything that showed it was Franken’s strategy to challenge ballots that voted for Obama but didn’t have a vote in the senate race (or to take it further had a vote for Coleman). You didn’t link to anything like that, because nothing like that exists.

You’re just full of BS. Coleman is doing what you guys falsely accused Franken of doing. It really is just too funny.

I’m aware of that, friend. I was thinking of all of the legal challenges, ballot challenges, Franken tying up the election results with litigious knots. As has been stated here often: Franken knows how to lose, but not gracefully.

But team Franken is not challenging ballots that vote for Obama, but either have no vote cast in the Senate race or a vote cast for Coleman. You guys were up in arms over this tactic (maybe not you specifically, but others in that thread were, and you DID accuse team Franken of employing this strategy. You were wrong.). The fact is Franken is not employing that strategy in the challenge process, but Coleman is.

What are you talking about? The basis of the challenge was “intent” as claimed by the Coleman campaign. Now, yes, he has a legal right to do this under Minnesota law, but I was pointing this out because people on HA were up in arms because they were claiming Franken’s team wanted ballots that voted for Obama with no vote for any senatorial campaign to count for Franken.

Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 1:01 PM

I can alleviate your confusion if you let me.

We at HA are up in arms over what a dumb-ass law it is that allows election judges to divine “Intent.” But if Minnesotans are stupid enough to pass such a law, can’t Coleman benefit by that stupidity? Or do you want the law to apply a-symmetrically?

As you said in an earlier post, nobody would waive his right to a recount in a close election. You seemed in that post to get the idea I’m getting at. I don’t fault anyone who plays to win. That’s not inconsistent with believing that the law which allows clowns to determine the voter’s intent are invitations to fraud, i.e., designed by democrats.

You showed me a link that said that part of Franken’s strategy was to get rejected absentee ballots re-examined. But you never linked to anything that showed it was Franken’s strategy to challenge ballots that voted for Obama but didn’t have a vote in the senate race (or to take it further had a vote for Coleman). You didn’t link to anything like that, because nothing like that exists.

You’re just full of BS. Coleman is doing what you guys falsely accused Franken of doing. It really is just too funny.

Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 1:07 PM

That along with the quotes from his attorneys…I can’t continue to spoon feed you every few days. You have to get a grasp on reality and remember or make note of what you are taught.
You remember facts like a sieve…
And I never “falsely” accused Franken, that was his strategy, and Coleman has picked up on it…now you are whining about it.

But team Franken is not challenging ballots that vote for Obama, but either have no vote cast in the Senate race or a vote cast for Coleman.
Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 1:10 PM

You are saying, only Coleman is using this tactic.
Yeah, sure…dKOs says so…
So please you never answered, who is Trigs’ real mom, what affair did Todd have? I mean those were factual stories from dKOS…please we are waiting…

“We had one of our organizers visit a woman at a nursing home, where she lives, and she told us that her signature was indeed different than what was on file with the country,” Elias said. “And that was because she had suffered a stroke.”

“So despite her efforts to get a ballot on time, consider the candidates, submit that ballot on time, her ballot didn’t count, because there was a mismatch in the signature that was on file with the county,” Elias continued. “There are stories like this throughout Minnesota.”

The Franken campaign says it has more examples of valid absentee ballots being rejected, but it did not share them.

In hopes of tracking down more information about rejected absentee ballots, the campaign filed a lawsuit in Ramsey County District Court seeking the names of everyone whose absentee ballots were rejected.

Elias said if he wins in Ramsey County, he expects every other Minnesota county would also be compelled to provide the names of those whose absentee ballots were rejected.

“This is not a lawsuit about putting ballots in the count or not in the count. This is about giving us access to the data that will allow us to determine whether or not there are lawful ballots,” said Elias, “[from] honest, hard-working men and women who did everything right. They played by the rules, they went to the Secretary of State’s Web site. They read how you cast an absentee ballot and they did all of those things, and yet their ballots weren’t counted.”

The Franken campaign says rejected absentee ballots need to be reconsidered in the recount, even though Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has said disqualified absentee ballots would not be part of the recount.

At a Wednesday news conference, Ritchie made it clear that bringing back rejected ballots can be done only through a legal challenge, called a contested election.

“The recount is done on ballots that have been accepted,” Ritchie said. “There could be a contest. A citizen could go to court and say, ‘My ballot wasn’t included,’ and ask a judge to make a ruling on that decision. But again it’s not in our area, it’s in the contest area.”

Still the Franken campaign said it will ask the State Canvassing board to include a review of rejected absentee ballots.

Nowhere in there do Franken’s attorney’s say or imply that it’s their strategy to challenge ballots that cast votes for Obama but don’t cast a vote in the senate race or cast a vote for Coleman.

I’ve shown you ballots that team Coleman are challenging using this logic, now you do the same. Or at least show me where anyone in the Franken campaign has said they will challenge ballots using this logic. Or AT LEAST show me where any one on the Coleman campaign has accused Team Franken of challenging ballots based on this logic.

I did a projection of the ballots based on what’s in. I did a similar projection last Friday and got a surprisingly consistent number(Monday, November 24, 2008 9:21 PM on the sheet):

In the counties that have finished counting Coleman has picked up 48 votes.

By just projecting the counties that are in the process to completion based on the % of ballots remaining gives Franken a pickup of 43 votes.

For the counties that haven’t begun to count, I calculated the slope of the regression line comparing the vote differential by county to the expected outcome, using the completed counties as the basis: Franken nets 12 more.

So I’m seeing a net pickup for Franken of 7 votes in the recount (excluding challenges). What is amazing is this was exactly the number that I estimated on Friday using the much sparser data that was available then.

One interesting statistical side note: One thing that caught my attention was the correlation between the original vote differential and the recount additions/subtractions is a -.55 — Coleman is gaining votes in Franken Counties and Franken gains in Coleman. The relative high magnitude (.55) hints that it is no fluke. I’m not sure what to make of that, but it is interesting.

Actually I was referring to Chuck Schumer’s comment that some political commentary is akin to pornography. I believe he was thinking of the Daily Kos. In fact, I’m sure that was his intent.

jeff_from_mpls on November 25, 2008 at 1:13 PM

We all know the Fairness Doctrine will apply to The Huffington Post, as well.

Accepting the Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award at a Creative Coalition gala in New York City on December 18, 2006, actor Sean Penn went on a rant calling for the impeachment of President Bush and insulting conservatives from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity. In the text of his prepared remarks, posted by The Huffington Post hours before he spoke, Penn said: So…look, if we attempt to impeach for lying about a blowjob, yet accept these almost certain abuses without challenge, we become a cum-stain on the flag we wave.

That was the least offensive of The Huffington House of Horrors. John Cusack, Alec Baldwin, etc. Barking Moonbats.

You posted a snippet of what I had taught you. I linked and quoted Franken and his attorneys.
Franken has 1,250 lawyers working on his behalf…
You linked a site that had these lies about Palin:
Palin Joined a Secessionist Political Party
Palin Supported a Nazi Sympathizer
Palin Wants Creationism Taught in School
Palin Was Nearly Recalled While Mayor
Palin Opposes Sex Education
Palin is the grandmother, and not the mother, of Trig Palin
Palin cheated on her husband Todd
Here are a few more dKos statements:
Now Daily Kos admits they look stupid publishing this rumor, this outright lie, admitting, at least in this instance, Daily Kos is an enormous fraud.

Flogging this rumor in light of what seems to be pretty solid counter-evidence is just squandering whatever credibility we have. In the words of Janor Hypercleats, ‘They’s laughin’ at you, boy.’ There is so much more that we could be highlighting regarding Palin; we don’t want that to be tarred with ‘from the same people who smeared Palin’s teenage daughter…

They even admit they are a fraud…yet you still adore them.
HAHAHAHAHA!!, yeah, Franken is a righteous guy, dKos say so…

You posted a snippet of what I had taught you. I linked and quoted Franken and his attorneys.

No you didn’t. You claimed you did in a previous thread, but I don’t recall that. What I posted above is all that I’m aware that you posted. If you have other evidence, again, post it.

Franken has 1,250 lawyers working on his behalf…

And that means what exactly?

As for the Palin stuff, nice strawman. I never condoned those accusations, but I’m smart enough to realize that one false story (one that was rebuked by members of the site as you have pointed out) does not mean everything the site posts is false. Idiotic argument on your point.

If we show you one ballot like this, will you not post another word about Franken or Coleman?

No, but you’ll gain some credibility for yourself if you’re able to. Again, I challenge you to post any of the following:

I’ve shown you ballots that team Coleman are challenging using this logic, now you do the same. Or at least show me where anyone in the Franken campaign has said they will challenge ballots using this logic. Or AT LEAST show me where any one on the Coleman campaign has accused Team Franken of challenging ballots based on this logic.

If you can you can, if you can’t you can’t. But quite this BS about “i already posted it.” I never saw it. And if you did post it once, it should be hard for you to post again.

I’ve shown you ballots that team Coleman are challenging using this logic, now you do the same. Or at least show me where anyone in the Franken campaign has said they will challenge ballots using this logic. Or AT LEAST show me where any one on the Coleman campaign has accused Team Franken of challenging ballots based on this logic.

Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 1:22 PM

Except the only one in the linked article asserting that Coleman is using this “logic” is a Franken lawyer. Excuse us if we don’t take that as gospel.

The quickly panning video (which doesn’t always show the entire voting field) that you linked did include frivolous challenges, likely in response to the frivolous challenges that the Franken camp has been making.

However, the ballots in the video include ballots where the oval wasn’t solidly filled in- it’s more likely that they were challenged for this reason (weak though it may be) as opposed to the fact that they also happened to vote for McCain. There’s also the possibility that the voter signed the ballot, which would render it invalid.

The ballot shown in Ed’s post is clearly a vote for Coleman, to any fair-minded observer. Why would anybody challenge that ballot? What is unclear about the “intent” of that voter?

It probably will come down to the challenged ballots, because the recount so far has reduced Coleman’s initial margin by TWO MEASLY VOTES! Since both candidates have LOST votes from the initial machine count, Franken’s tale of “undervotes” being missed by the machines has been shown to be a myth. In such a case, a hand recount would INCREASE the vote totals for both candidates.

Since the number of challenged ballots by each candidate is about even, the result will depend on the relative validity of the challenges.

… I’m smart enough to realize that one false story…
Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 3:14 PM

But not smart enough to see that I linked about seven stories…like I have warned, don’t post, it makes you look foolish…you can’t tell the difference between one false story and 7 false stories. How the hell are you going to tell us Franken is right and Coleman is wrong….when you rely on a site that is full of lies, and you have to lie about the lies, youch, I am getting a headache just thinking about how you try to reason.
This is not math…in math a negative times a negative is a positive…so you think a lie times a lie is the truth, that must be it.
Tom, Tom, Tom,…whadda we gonna do wit u…

If you can you can, if you can’t you can’t. But quite this BS about “i already posted it.” I never saw it. And if you did post it once, it should be hard for you to post again.

Tom_Shipley on November 25, 2008 at 3:14 PM

I have already spoon fed you…aren’t you the guy that made the ridiculous legal argument the other day? And then had to beg forgiveness, after I schooled you? The “free speech” one.
I won’t re-educate you on that either…
Please for your own good (however I think it is too late) don’t embarrass yourself with these kind of posts…I am trying to help you.

But not smart enough to see that I linked about seven stories…like I have warned, don’t post, it makes you look foolish…you can’t tell the difference between one false story and 7 false stories.

If you’re such a legal scholar, you’ll know that each argument should be contested on its own merit. Claiming that the video I link to is invalid because that page links to “7 false stories” (without showing why any of these stories are “false”) is just about the most idiotic argument I’ve seen on here in a while.

You did better when you tried to claim only one of the shown ballots shows the “write in” area, but unfortunately the video shows the write in portion on four of the ballots, so that didn’t really work out for you.

Steve Z actually makes the best point about the video stating there could be a more logical reason for the challenge. Though, a signature issue doesn’t seem likely since they show that the reason for the challenge is intent.

There could be another explanation other than what the video evidence shows, but based on that video evidence, it really does seem like Coleman is challenging ballots that vote for McCain and clearly vote for Franken.

Now, I’ve asked you at least three different times to back up your claims with a link. You’ve so far failed to do so. I’m sorry, but if you can’t back up your arguments, then you’re just full of shit. End of story.

I’m not going anywhere fellas, I was just saying “see ya” to right2bright’s credibility. He has continually made a BS claim and has continually taken the coward’s way out and not backed it up with ANY proof.

I proved it the other day, and you wouldn’t read the facts…
Then you took me on with a legal argument, and I cited several cases that stated you were dead wrong, and you still insisted on making a fool of yourself, even after obvious and overwhelming facts.
Now you are back to the other day, I am not going to keep spoon feeding you…I have told you that. You have received an education from me in politics and law.
I answered you, I linked, I quoted in both instances…but you won’t take facts, you link to dKos. I even showed where dKos has no credibility and they even admitted it, but you still think they are fact because you think I only stated one, when I stated 7 or so.
You, as I have stated time and time again, do not care abut facts…it means nothing to you.
Facts to a liberal is like kryptonite to Superman, as the saying goes.
So no matter what I link from the NYT, LAT, WSJ, Congressional Record, time and again…you will come back a day later and ask for it again….then you embarrass yourself by linking to dKOS and claim that is some kind of news agency…my God you have no shame, no sense of history, no opinion but what is fed to you by dKOS.
Why would I waste anymore time on someone who depends on dKOS for their news…in other words you are a hopeless liberal, that hangs around and we get to make fun of you and your links…like throwing peanuts to the organ grinders monkey…here catch…

What you quoted and what you linked to in the thread I was in in no way proves your point. And the fact that you won’t repost what you say you posted shows me you’re fool of shit.

Yes, I was wrong on certain things in the legal thread and I admitted that. But I wasn’t wrong on other questions I raised, which you conveniently ignored.

I, unlike you, will admit when I’m wrong. You’re wrong here and instead of admitting it or proving that you’re not wrong, you just go on some rambling thing about how liberals are idiots, blah blah blah.

Notice that I never make generalizations while I’m on here. I only deal with the people I arguing with. I don’t condemn all conservatives, just ones who are wrong in specific instances like you are in this one. So, keep playing your childish game if you like, but you’re wrong here and you’re not man enough to admit it. That, in my book, makes you a joke.

Here’s a childish game for ‘ya — Tom Shipley — go away. Noone likes you, you are not wanted so, please go play by yourself. The blogosphere is just like your real life; i.e., noone likes you, you are not wanted and you play by yourself!! Go to the koo koo kos, where you will be welcomed with open stinky arms!!